On Thursday, October 26th, we completed our project ‘Scheepje op Houten Golven’.
You still know: that slender boat dancing on wooden waves made of orange boxes, in the Oorgat during the International Hansiatic Days in Kampen NL.
The public kept her going and so she danced and swinged in June for three days.
Our installations often have a short lifetime. There is nothing wrong with that. They live in the memory, don’t they?

work#art Artworks are not only developed for the public and the place.The building- and development period also plays an important public role in our projects. And increasingly we work with others, professional or amateur artists, volunteers mostly.
Sometimes it becomes more a construction than a development project. Than another part of the process gets more the opportunity to pay attention to.
As in this case with Little Ship on Wood Waves.
For more than half a year we worked with an international group of volunteers.
A special mix of people living here – the Kamper Kogges and collegue- artists from Vietnam, gladly coming over for it. And also a group of young men, involuntary fled people from Afghanistan. They liked to engage with our Hanze. Formally they’re called Unaccompanied minor aliens in the Netherlands. We called them simple the Rogge Botters after te place where they live now. Here in the neighbourhood of the city.
The enthusiasm of the whole crew held us together and has been from that moment a challenge for the city: Hanze-elan 2017 ..

Partly because of many, Kampen became involved in everything we encountered and came about. For example, the project has conquered many hearts.
Many people actually got into the legs and participated in whatever form: As organizer, politician, sponsor in money or good, carrier, taxi driver, pool opener, vendor, night watchman, traffic controller. And, cramped or curious, the Community of Kampen followed well and woe of the artwork and the people around it and learned a lot.

We like to keep going on the elan we started as a constant impulse to the hospitable environment: Kampen this time.
At the place where the city is listening to the stream of the river. The IJssel transport her dreams into the wide world .. right into the future.
Dreams that we can keep active when we cherise the elan around Little Ship and the Hanze Days.

So we give it a place here and take care of the future. A time that occurs again and again and takes on new shapes.
We wish our life can be a artwork. An adventure we can keep delighted and amazed of when we keep it active alive.

Since 2009, after completion of an installation we plant a seed, made of remaining material at the site we leave. We put it in the ground as a symbol of the progress and continuing of art and this way we make a connection between all that places on earth.
So, we complete this project also with a little ceremony.
Just at the place where Scheepje has danced, we symbolically put a seed into the ground, together with the volunteers and other invitees.
A bean made of wood and jute, with all the personal wishes of our volunteers in it.
A germ arising from Art and carrying around a poetic rhizome.

RTV IJsselmond made a movie. That can not be shown publicly yet. Two of the residents of the AZC Dronten were fortunately present, but one is still underage. In case of human traffickers earning money from refugees, it’s not allowed to be recognizable. A real hassle. It would be so good this wouldn’t be necessary anymore! How to manage that together?

At the pictures: In Huize Maria the volunteers wrote a wish; all wishes have gone into the soil with the seed.
Bert drilled a deep narrow hole with a drill bit. The seed is buried at more than one arm’s length in the Oorgat Park; who wanted to throw a bunch of sand on it. Then the plaque, fitted with a kind of corkscrew, was turned into the ground. Just below the ground level (^ .. ^). There it’s is a reminder of the Hanze elan 2017 and the ‘Little Ship on Wooden Waves’.

The plaque is made to a design by Han Truong and cut out by Wiechert van Heerde.

This is the version of the video made by RTV-IJsselmond. The face of the minor ‘Roggebotter’ is been made unrecognizable in this film.
He has also seen that version himself and was completely annoyed.
“I have no face,” he shouted, “why do not I have a face?”

It is, of course, horrible to everyone when the mirror of your soul is erased and especially for someone in this phase of development.
Who are you if you can not have a face?
What are we doing to each other and why …….